The Verkhovna Radaʼs Human Rights Committee supported draft law No. 10425 "On some issues in the field of migration regarding the grounds and procedure for acquiring and terminating Ukrainian citizenship", i.e. on multiple citizenship.
The press service of the parliament writes about it.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy submitted the document to the Council on January 22 and defined it as urgent. The main goal of the draft law is to allow Ukrainians who live abroad and have other citizenships to keep their Ukrainian passports. In general, the draft law will allow all ethnic Ukrainians and their descendants, except citizens of the Russian Federation, as well as foreign volunteers, to have Ukrainian citizenship.
What does the draft law propose?
- determine the states whose citizens (subjects) acquire Ukrainian citizenship under a simplified procedure;
- to determine the category of people who must terminate their foreign citizenship in order to acquire Ukrainian citizenship;
- introduce a declaration of self-recognition as a citizen of Ukraine;
- update the category of people who cannot acquire Ukrainian citizenship;
- review the grounds for loss of Ukrainian citizenship.
What preceded it
In 2021, Zelensky submitted five draft laws on multiple citizenship to the Verkhovna Rada, but they did not have time to consider them before the start of a full-scale war.
Draft Law No. 6368 was supposed to determine the attitude of the state towards Ukrainian citizens who have the citizenship of other states. The second bill related to national security — No. 6369. It talked about the system of declaring citizenship of other states and checking the authenticity of the data in this declaration.
This was related to draft law No. 6372 — on administrative responsibility for late submission or failure to submit a declaration on the presence of another citizenship. Criminal liability was provided for deliberate attempts to hide the fact of dual citizenship. The draft law also proposed to limit the right to dual citizenship to judges ( No. 6371 ) and customs officers ( No. 6370 ).